I thought I'd start a new thread for the month of August. We had some rains and a thunderstorm this afternoon and it was cloudy when I took these photo's of a little Northern Mockingbird perched in the Cypress tree:

Hurray for a new thread started. Poor bird does look all wet!

Lin

Thanks for starting the Aug. thread. (just read what you said in the July thread)

It's too hot and humid to play outside today and I have some errands to run anyway but I was out on the back porch a few minutes ago to move something and heard the Jays screeching their distress calls. I looked out and sure enough, there was a hawk circling, causing all the backyard songbirds to take off for cover! I spotted this Mourning Dove in the neighbors Elm tree just before it flew into a shrub beside the house. Hope the hawk goes hunting someplace else.

Pretty Morning Dove.

Thanks Rita! I love the blue ring around their eyes and those pretty pinkish red legs and feet!

What a beautiful pic, Lin!!! love the contrast of leg and feather color, too!!

Yes, me too. I agree completely.

Thanks ladies!

Not much going on this thread lately. I am still feeding the birds here as usual but not getting any pictures.

I know some of you on this forum used to be on a chat thread in the sandbox. Well, JB has started a wonderful upbeat chat threat there that has really taken off. Pictures of flowers and birds and such welcome. Come talk about your day. Talk about your garden and your birds. Just join in!

On 8/8/13, it poured down in the morning. Around 1 pm, I looked out the patio door and this is what we saw on the pole (utility/telephone) in the backyard (in the corner of the yard). The bird was trying to dry out. He/she was standing on the pole and would turn around in a circle while the wings were stretched out. It would stand awhile in each position when he/she took a quarter of turn as he/she went around the 'circle'.

Finally, it sat down and flew away (later). We didn't get to see it fly away. We turned away from the patio door and when we went back to look, it was gone.

We were watching it for awhile before DH starting taking pics. Don't know how long it was on the pole, before we saw it. The pics spanned an hour in time (from first one to last one).

DH started taking pics through the patio door at first, since he didn't want to scare the bird away, but after a few pics, he slowly opened the door and took the rest of the pics that way (to get better and clearer shots).

I thought he cropped/zoomed the pics before adding them to the computer, but I see he didn't.

The day had a lot of glare and the pics reflected it. The song birds were feeding below and flying around the whole time the big bird was above them trying to dry out. We saw it watching them. Guess it was looking for dead meat (birds, etc.).

It looks like a juvie Turkey Vulture.

We live in a rural area within our subdivison and there is a 13 acre wooded meadow field next to our property. This is the first time we've seen this. We've been living here since Spring 1997.

Oh my, what a sight! And living next to a 13 acre woods and meadow sounds like a very good thing to me. No wonder you get such a nice assortment of birdlife.

Marilyn, pretty cool to see the vulture sitting like that. We saw 3 flying over head when we were sitting on the patio yesterday, we thought that was cool.

Very cool shots Marilyn! We have Turkey Vultures in Florida too but I don't see them as often as I do the American Black Vulture. I'm in California this week and I'm hoping to get some pictures of birds out here that I don't see in Fla.

Thanks everyone!

Lin,

Looking forward to seeing CA Quail pics (& their babies/juvies, if you can). They're all so adorable!

Have a safe trip!

I took this today and thought it was cute how the two doves look like twins side by side!

The heat and drought must be hard on the birds. When I do leave the sprinklers on for a while, the birds have such fun! It's nice to watch them enjoying themselves, but can't water very often. One of the cardinals I saw just enjoying the spray of water...

Very nice shots Linda

Silky dogwood in my yard has set more berries this year than ever before. They are turning from green to blue. We will see how long it takes the catbirds to eat them.


Cardinal Candy Viburnum. Berries not quite red ripe yet. Usually these are eaten during the winter after freeze thaws soften up the berries. Usually eaten by the Cedar Waxwings.

Look, look. These are the berries on my Silky Dogwood turning from Green to Blue. The Catbirds will eat them as soon as they get ripe.

Linda: Love that pair of Doves and how cute the little Cardinal ... as hot as it's been I know our birdie friends appreciate a sprinkle now and again!

Rita: Looks like your garden is going to provide a feast for the Catbirds pretty soon!

I haven't taken time to get any pictures lately but we were in southern California last week and I did manage to get a shot of this cute little bird when it perched for about two seconds; I have no idea what bird it is: